Gut-check time

Thursday

Apr 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMApr 29, 2010 at 3:58 PM

Belly fat does more than spoil everyone's day at the beach. It's also associated with various adverse health issues and can be precursors to other problems, including elevated blood-glucose values, Type 2 diabetes, elevated blood pressure and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Summer is just around the corner, guys. And few sights are less appealing than a beer gut hanging over a new Speedo.

Belly fat does more than spoil everyone's day at the beach. It's also associated with various adverse health issues and can be precursors to other problems, including elevated blood-glucose values, Type 2 diabetes, elevated blood pressure and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

"There's an increased risk of heart disease with increasing waist circumference or abdominal fat, and increased risk of overall mortality," warned Dr. Donald Hensrud, chairman of the division of preventive medicine at the Mayo Clinic and the medical editor in chief of the Mayo Clinic diet.

In other words: Lose the paunch, and you'll be healthier.

Know which fat is which

According to Hensrud, there are two types of abdominal fat involved: subcutaneous fat and visceral fat.

"Visceral fat is inside the abdominal wall; subcutaneous fan is outside the abdominal wall - the stuff you can grab," he said.

"It's commonly believed that visceral fat is more harmful, associated with more health risks than subcutaneous fat. Although that's generally true, it's not 100percent the case. There's some evidence that subcutaneous fat isn't as benign as some people think."

Understand the causes

Belly fat can have several causes, including genetics, a sedentary lifestyle and aging.

"As people age, they tend to accumulate fat around the abdomen," said Hensrud, pointing to a decline in hormone levels (testosterone in men, estrogen in women) that results in added weight.

Smoking, too, can be blamed.

"In general, smoking is associated with a lower body weight," he said. "But like alcohol, smokers also tend to carry their weight more in an abdominal distribution. So they might lose weight overall, but - this is generalizing - a smoker might be more likely to be thinner and have a little pot belly."

One final culprit: alcohol. (Yes, we mean beer and its calories.)

"Alcohol prevents the breakdown of fat to some extent, particularly around the abdomen," Hensrud explained. "There seems to be more of an effect from beer rather than wine."

Change your ways

There are three ways to combat the beer gut, none of which is a particular revelation.

If you're less-motivated, limit your drinking to weekends. And switch to light beer, which contains about two-thirds the calories of regular beer.

If you must have a drink in your hand, try bottled water or fruit juice (but watch the caloric intake).

"When people hold weight, whether it's in their bellies or legs or wherever, it's because of excess calories," said Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "And one of the key places people get excess calories is alcohol."

Drinking can also lead to that other evil: eating.

"Beer's making people eat supersized pieces of pizza or burritos as big as your head," Blatner said.

A light beer can help.

"The average beer is probably 150 (calories) or more, and a light beer is 100 or less. If you figure somebody is drinking more than the two drinks a man is supposed to have in a night, that's more than 100 calories they'll save."

Lose the fatty foods

Nothing mixes with beer as well as fatty bar food. If you're scrapping the beer, do it right and eliminate Twinkies and beer nuts from your diet, too.

"And other dietary patterns may affect fat distribution. One paper showed that a diet of 25 percent of total calories composed of fructose - high-fructose corn syrup, things like that - was associated with increased visceral weight gain."

Eating more meals of smaller portions - five a day instead of three, for example - can also help.

Get active

You can do 500 sit-ups a day, and your stomach muscles will become wonderfully strong.

The problem is: The muscles will be hidden under your beer gut. Sit-ups won't make the fat disappear.

"You can't spot-reduce," Hensrud said. "Either doing specific exercise, crunches, or wearing one of these belts around the middle things, it doesn't work."

On the other hand, when you do start to lose weight, you might notice it first in the belly. Visceral fat, Hensrud said, seems to be more metabolically active, so it's deposited and broken down more readily than fat in other places.

"So if people lose weight, they tend to lose it a little bit more readily around the middle," he said.

He also pointed out two studies that showed people who didn't lose weight during an exercise program still lost visceral fat in the abdomen.

"Perhaps they added a little muscle elsewhere and broke down a little abdomen fat, but the bottom line was, they didn't lose weight."

The best exercises are ones that reduce total body fat - cardiovascular and aerobic programs.

Running, swimming, cycling and tennis all help burn off fat. Thirty minutes a day, three or four times a week will result in noticeable weight loss and improve your metabolism.

If running and cycling are too strenuous, take an easier route: Go for a long, brisk walk - to the store, to buy some fruits and vegetables.